Spotlight: Pam Ann Returns at the Howard Theatre

Queen of the sky Pam Ann comes in for a landing with a brand new comedy set

Having traveled the world as international celebrity air hostess Pam Ann, the Australian comedian Caroline Reid has touched down everywhere from Melbourne to Mykonos. And, after whirlwind years of Pam Ann touring the globe, appearing in major ad campaigns, hosting her own network TV talk show Down Under, and headlining Prides and Bear Weeks from the Pines to P-Town, she’s found her peace and quiet in a most unlikely place: Miami.

“I guess it’s almost art imitating life, because the character — well, myself — I started off in Melbourne,” she explains. “And I hadn’t flown much, and Pam Ann was quite a nice character back then. And then I moved to Sydney and the drag queens took me under their wing — or cornered me in many dressing rooms, telling me off for taking their Sundays or Tuesday nights.”

Reid continued to adapt Pam Ann to her surroundings with a move to London. “To be heard in these gay clubs, you had to scream and shout from the rafters. So then Pam became a bit more aggressive. And then I moved to New York and I guess you have to just get with the beat of that city. So she became even more intense. And then…she needs to calm down. So Miami is like, ‘Oh, okay, I can have a balance of life now.'”

While she might have settled in the Sunshine State, the saucy sexpot of the friendly skies hasn’t settled down just yet. Soon she’ll take off on a North American tour, Pam Ann Returns, and will be featured as the fresh face of the recently launched carrier Air Italy.

Making a stop next week in D.C. at the Howard Theatre, Pam Ann Returns will cross the continent throughout September serving first-class caustic wit to the comic’s many gay fans, before heading to London. Although, as summer comes to a close, she says one thing she wishes she could do for the gays is help solve an inconvenience faced by queer communities worldwide.

“Every gay destination or gay beach is very hard to get to,” she observes, accurately. “It’s a schlep, like in Provincetown. You have to have a need to get to Provincetown to experience that Cape Fear Airline. And then you go to Ibiza, and you’ve got to walk through a sewer to get to the nude beach. In Mykonos, you’ve got to climb over rocks to get to a fucking shady, old plastic sunbed. I don’t know why. Because you can fuck in the rocks.

“If I was going to help the gay community out, I would put a fucking runway right down the middle of the Pines. I will land there, and I won’t land a stupid fucking Cessna. I will bring a nice, beautiful Boeing Max. Since I’ve bought all those, we now call them Boeing Maxines.”